Thread: Remember when ??

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Yes.

Yes.

What did they charge to see drags back then ! ! How did they do the timming?

And they gave trophies with WOOD and METAL on them. The wood was walnut.

We ran at an AHRA track where the handicap was "car lengths". I raced a guy once and got 20 car lengths spot......400ft.....the flagman was at the 1/8th mile mark almost. Still lost.

The pits were gravel and they sold Coke in real bottles, not cups. It cost $1.00 for a spectator and I think 50cents to go into the pits. The real racers had open trailers, you flat towed the rest.

Most of us drove to the track on slicks; that is unitl it sprinkled rain one day and I got stuck on level ground at a stop light.

Yup

Originally posted by techinspector1
Yes.

Been there done that

Too young. Kind of a shame. But man, does that look fun!

Yep, I remember well. It seems like those old days were more fun & exciting.

Yep and I've seen the flagman get hit when a car got to much bite and swerved and hit him on the side.

anybody remember 4 car races??? We used to have them at Minnesota Dragways. Pretty complicated starting. They had a guy on each lane with one hand on each car and watching for red lites. Lots of disputes haha. My 57 Chev 283 Hp FI was a bit of a drifter off the line and we usually got to race the std 2 car races as a result. ( it helped to steer it around a bit that way I didn't have to enter the stupid 4 car races haha).

Got to stand right at the edge of the track at the finish line with Hoover and Schifsky making 210+ mph runs side by side. This is how we got "high" back in '65. LOL

We smoked the weeds with our weed burners LOL

I could write a book on "how it was"

bentwings

It was fun, but we sure were dumb. We didn't have sense enough to know something could happen to those cars to make the driver loose control and run over you.

Originally posted by chevy 37
Yep and I've seen the flagman get hit when a car got to much bite and swerved and hit him on the side.

I never got hit, but had a few close calls.

Originally posted by robot
And they gave trophies with WOOD and METAL on them. The wood was walnut.
We ran at an AHRA track where the handicap was "car lengths". I
The pits were gravel and they sold Coke in real bottles, not cups.
Most of us drove to the track

Wood, metal and chunks of marble tropies. At one time I had boxes and boxes of those that got religated to the attack of the garage.
I never had a trailer back then. Each week I took tools,jack and stands,spare tire and a extra 3rd member. That was my insurance that I would make it home.
I loved getting those 6 to 8 car lenght spots. Those little mind games always helped.
I have to admit, when we went from flags to the christmas tree, we thought we were really uptown.

That was an exciting time round here. Louie Orlando was the flagman at Puyallup and the various strips had widely varying finish lines. Some were three feet wide, some were ten feet wide. The lights were placed wherever they would provide the best times. The times and miles per hour were determined by the anticipated crowd reaction and how it would look in Drag News. All the bs made it no less fun and exciting though. I remember when AA/FD were running and drag chutes were only on F-102's and the first zoomie headers were just because it was cheaper to buy four 180* bends and cut them in half. Picking up any downforce from it was an accident.

Some old pics at Bayview. My brother's white 59 Chevy is there and we pushed the car with it. That's Bob Haines driving, no gloves, Sunday drive and all. The car was sponsored by Day and Night Speed Center Tacoma at that time. Shortly after it was sponsored by California Equipment Company and Drag Fast shifters out of Seattle. It was known as the Thunderbolt, Cal Equip car and later the Goldenrod.

http://www.horsepowerheaven.com/feat...arbayview.html

The bell housing shield was a piece of tire tread held on with pipe straping to the frame and the safty hubs where 1/4 inch metal bent like a hook an bolted to the backing plate. That was in 55, things sure were simple,an speeds were slow.